Politics
Lawan advocates withdrawal of time limit on naira notes
The Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, on Friday called for the withdrawal of the time limit on the use of the old Naira notes.
Lawan, who addressed State House correspondents at the end of the Council of State meeting in Abuja, urged the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to allow the old Naira notes to coexist with the new ones for the mean time.
He decried the suffering the redesign of naira notes has caused Nigerians.
The Council of State had during the meeting urged the CBN to make the new naira notes available alongside the old notes in order to address the tension created by scarcity of the banknotes in the country.
Lawan said: “For us in the Senate, initially we felt that this policy in the first place is not a bad one. But we also feel there is no need for time limit.
READ ALSO: Wike hails Supreme Court’s ruling on old naira notes, to join suit
“Allow the old and the new to co-exist until the old is phase out. So, what is wrong in that? This is not going to be the first country to deploy it that way.
“Other countries have been doing the same thing. And to say that in three months it will be okay? It is not okay, especially in a country like ours where maybe 80, 85, 90 percent of the population lack access to banks.
“When Britain changed their currency, it took them over a year to change and the validity of the old remains and remains a legal tender. So, why ours? We are not cashless yet and that society is cashless already and they needed even more time.”
Join the conversation
Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism
Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.
As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.
If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.
Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.
INVESTIGATION: In Kwara, multimillion-naira milk processing plant is abandoned, converted to a chicken outlet
After the government spent millions of naira to establish a milk processing plant in Kwara State that would provided jobs...
SPECIAL REPORT: For Sokoto communities, promise of healthcare is akin to death sentence
In this story, ABDULRASHEED HAMMAD delves into the dire realities of Primary Health Care services in Sokoto State, shedding light...
ICYMI…SPECIAL REPORT: NNPCL hides behind PIA to frustrate disclosure, accountability
Nigeria’s major oil company, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL), in what appears to be a common practice of disregard...
INVESTIGATION: Multi-million naira Ekiti resort center remains uncompleted a decade after
The multimillion-naira project, expected to comprise recreational buildings, now consists of cassava farmland, a bush used for excretion, and a...
SPECIAL REPORT: Torturous experiences of students with disabilities in Oyo tertiary institutions
For students with disabilities in Oyo state-owned tertiary institutions, learning is a torturous and distressing experience, considering the building structures...